Tik Tok Soul Suck
social media is the f*cking devil
I’ve written a lot about social media. Last year I wrote this piece about permanently saying goodbye to my social media accounts:
A Permanent Goodbye to Social Media
But guess what? SOCIAL MEDIA SUCKED ME BACK IN!
Surprised?? Neither am I.
Yesterday I deleted my TikTok account and posted a hiatus message on my Instagram. I’ll be deactivating that one, too. I’m rarely on Facebook, so no worries there. I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could be an angelic vision of self-control. But I no longer fault myself for my addiction. Everyone’s addicted. And for those of you who aren’t addicted? Well, I’d love to know your secret to moderation, though it’s likely that knowing would be of little help to me.
For those of you who are already readying your arguments about the positive aspects of social media: this article may not be for you. Or maybe it’s exactly for you. Either way, these are my opinions and experiences (along with some cited research), and I am not arguing that social media has no benefits whatsoever; rather that, for me, its benefits are vastly outweighed by its addictive qualities and increasingly destructive environmental impact.
I understand that my TikTok feed contains multitudes: excellent animal videos, queertok, booktok, therapytok, the apple dance, that animal groomer with her soothing voice, artists and writers and opinions and conspiracy theories and political memes and explanatory greenscreen videos purporting to be fact when they are in fact not fact.
I understand what social media offers to those of us who feel isolated and alone in our experiences— it’s likely my adolescence would have been improved by a wider range of contact, specifically with neurodivergent and queer communities. But I also may have died because of the increased sense of inadequacy. I may have lost myself completely.
The algorithm circles the drain, always drawing me in, drawing me equally towards what attracts and repulses me, until I look away from my phone and realize I have a body in space, and that body has been bedrotting, as they say.
To prevent brain rot one only has to touch grass, correct?
Social media removes me from the present moment. From my life. Here.
Lately I’ve been asking myself what social media adds to my life.
Nothing. It adds nothing.
No, I’m serious. Hear me out.
Any connections I feel with people on social media, which inherently flattens discourse into sound bites and monologues and comment sections, come with so many distractions they they’re no longer worth it to me.
Most social media relationships are parasocial and superficial by nature, accompanied by toxic comment sections and half-baked reflections.
Even the messages I exchange with friends on social media feel like thin-skinned balloons, delicate and ephemeral, littering the ground with invisible environmental waste.
When I think of what social media adds to my life; you know, the positives; I think of art and stories and inspiration. Those things can be acquired outside of social media, without all the accompanying bullshit. Without the ads and the ludic loop and the addictive, nasty aftertaste of having watched a video that was traumatizing or disturbing or a waste of my time. Without the persistent nudge of an algorithm designed to steal my attention and autonomy.
Social media is like a garbage dump.
There are occasional treasures, but it’s mostly plastic leaching into the soil. Concepts and ideas and thoughts regurgitated and tweaked and regurgitated until all context is lost. And AI is only making it worse.
So what exactly counts as social media?
I define social media as any platform that prioritizes consumption above the health and sanity of its users. This includes TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Oh, and X (fka Twitter), which I deactivated when Elon took over.
One could call Substack social media, but I think this depends on how one uses Substack. As a writer I do engage with the Notes feature sometimes, but it doesn’t feel addictive to me, and I’m not there often. For the most part I witness people engaging deeply with writing and content, though the algorithm likely marginalizes certain ideas users.
Why do I think social media is the f*cking devil?
Social media has existed in some form for all of my adult life. As someone on the cusp of the Millennial/Gen X dividing line (born in 1980), I grew up learning how to interact with computers. By my teens, in the 90’s, I was active in chat rooms. Then MySpace and LiveJournal. Then Facebook, etc. etc.
But everything changed with the iPhone.
The thing about social media without the iPhone is that it stayed at home and most of us lived our lives away from the computer, taking photos and posting them online but not constantly recording ourselves or watching others. We didn’t yet see ourselves and others as commodities or our work as “content.”
Sometimes I wonder what Apple was thinking when it released the iPhone. Were they thinking that they were adding value to people’s lives? Maybe they were thinking of adding money to their pockets and the pockets of employers whose workers were now tethered to their jobs like never before.
The iPhone violated our privacy, and we were all so excited about it. Western culture was already so deprived of community and connection that we lapped up the opportunity to willingly share our lives with others, and the sacrifice we made was to share our personal information and data with monolithic corporations whose interest was in profit, not well being or connection.
The first iPhone was released on June 29, 2007, and it sure did blow up. Steve Jobs was made into a God and the tech sector became one of the most powerful industries; a status it maintains today (although its power centers are shifting).
Three years later, Instagram happened. It exploded. Within two months there were a million people using the app to document their lives.
It’s wild to think back to that time, when Instagram was new and we were so naive.
During the winter after Instagram’s release, I nannied for a tech worker who didn’t let his children use iPhones and wouldn’t use his phone around them. When I asked him why, he said it was because the device was so addictive. It would stunt their growth.
Almost 15 years later, children develop in tandem with tablets and phones. I’ve seen kids younger than one hypnotized by the moving colors and sounds emanating from their device— in grocery stores, at parks, and in cars. Their parents are often similarly hypnotized. Although discussions about screen time primarily center around children, they should also address adult screen addiction, and how this affects parent/child relationships. I say this as a seasoned caregiver who did not rely on screen time for my nanny kids. I know how hard that is. But I also know that it’s deeply important to fostering personal connection and relationships.
Brain rot is a real thing. According to Boston Children’s Hospital:
“The more time the children had spent with screens at 12 months of age, the stronger were their slower-frequency brain waves, known as theta waves, compared with high-frequency beta waves.
‘A higher theta/beta ratio indicates a less-alert state, and has been associated with inattention,’ explains Dr. Evelyn Law, who led the study and was part of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences during her fellowship at Boston Children’s.”
This conclusion was based on a groundbreaking study, but more research is needed.
Last January, New York City declared social media an “environmental health toxin.
But alas, I am not here to argue about children and screens. I already know screens are destructive to kids.
I know this because I grew up with television. Television was my babysitter and parent and social group— a site of stability in my otherwise unstable childhood. I learned about life from television, but life is not television. Unlearning the false truths portrayed on my screens was a long, arduous process.
I am an addict. And screens are dangerous for addicts. But I wonder now how many of us are addicts without realizing the depth of our addiction.
When I trained in Yoga Nidra, which is a deep rest technique, I learned of the power of pausing. Pausing is necessary for processing. Processing is essential to critical thinking and presence.
Scrolling gives us no pause. No processing time. Without this essential element, we inevitably lose ourselves in the onslaught of images, videos, and voices. A sense of urgency develops inside of us, but there’s no release valve. We long for closure, but one of the primary elements of social media is a lack of closure.
During my training I practiced pausing while using social media. Watching one video and pausing. Looking at a single image. Pausing.
When I paused, I became aware of a churning unrest. Sometimes I noticed pleasure, particularly after viewing educational and artistic content, but that pleasure was always accompanied by a sense of inadequacy. Of not being as good as the artist or the educator.
The constant lack of completion kept me bound by longing— longing for a different life or body. Longing for more material possessions or recognition.
Longing to be seen.
Are we really seen on social media?
Do we truly see each other on social media?
As an autistic person I tell my friends that texting is not my favorite mode of communication.
When I communicate via text I’m unable to fully interact, but I also over-interact, meaning I project my own past experiences and ways of being onto the text itself. I assume intent and purpose. I struggle to express myself in words without voice tone or body language. I struggle to understand.
Yet texting, through social media platforms or phone messages, has become the default mode of communication for most of us.
We ghost. We gray rock. Our relationships become as superficial as the block of text popping up on our screens.
Many years ago my therapist told me that solving a problem via text or email is nearly impossible.
I’ve found that to be true.
So how can we expect to solve our conflicts- societal or personal or cultural- simply through text or images or videos?
We learn through relationships. Understanding blooms via relationships. But only if we listen.
On social media I see so many categorical declarations of value. This person or that person is wrong, and blocked. This group or that group is evil, as a monolith. Individuals become symbolic and abstract; rejected for their identity. The individual rebels, and is further rejected for their reaction.
In this way I think that social media has increased our ability to discriminate against each other, to devalue each other’s lived experiences, thoughts, and opinions. To react without ponderance or pause.
We’re learning to write each other off based on instinct and unconscious (or conscious) bias rather than experience.
It kind of sounds like fascism to me.
It kind of feels like fascism, too.
Jealousy
Jealousy is something I’ve worked with my entire life, especially as the perpetual new kid. As a child, teenager, and young adult I was perpetually overcome by a longing to be someone else. I’d look at classmates or people on the street and wish for their lives. If given the opportunity, I’d have traded mine for theirs, based on appearance alone.
Although I’ve worked through a lot of my jealousy, it still arises sometimes, though my insinct now is to replace jealousy with inspiration or motivation, rather than sinking into envy, which can be immobilizing for any artist.
But the FOMO of social media is so real, and destructive.
How many talented people are held back by their fear of not being as good as the people they admire, rather than leaning into their own unique abilities?
Social media feeds on jealousy. If social media were a color, it would be green with envy. That envy is a vehicle for silence as well as consumption. We go broke trying to look like someone else; trying to arrest the aging process; trying to buy the perfect pen or bed or house or bag or write like someone else, imitating what we think has brought fulfillment to others.
Of course, jealousy was not invented by social media, but it’s certainly exacerbated by the mechanism of social media, where most people create a highlight reel of their days, weeks, months, and years. We witness more triumphs than struggles, and we learn about struggles once someone has overcome them rather than when they’re in the darkness. We seek aspirational content that leaves us feeling behind and less than valuable.
Because algorithms prioritize engagement, we witness the highest highs and lowest lows. In comparison our lives can feel mundane. Empty.
The joy of a blooming flower; the quiet of a solo walk through a park or field; the gentle peace of a morning spent reading in bed; the privilege of running water and electricity— none of these are enough when compared to someone with MORE. And there is always someone with more. Supposedly.
The algorithm begs us to document, but when our experiences don’t receive enough attention we’re left feeling as if we’ve done something wrong.
We haven’t done anything wrong.
I truly believe that every life is deeply interesting. The algorithm argues otherwise. The algorithm asks us to assume someone else’s shape and way of being.
I’m quitting again.
How long will I stay away?
As long as I can. Because I know through experience that my life— both internally and externally— is greatly improved when I don’t engage with social media. I seek out personal connections with friends and acquaintances. I expand as my presence expands. Each time I leave social media, I discover who I am outside of the algorithm. I remember that I have thoughts and ideas and that I can dwell on them long enough to shape them into something cohesive and complex— something particular to me rather than aimed like an arrow to pierce the collective.
Outside of social media, I care less what others think of me. I ask: What do I think of myself. What is my purpose? What do I love? I seek quiet. I seek contemplation. I peruse the internet, taking the time to read full articles and essays. I read more books. Slowly.
My ideas take shape slowly, shaped and distilled on a slow simmer rather than a boil.
Without social media, It’s easier to approach actions and reactions with pause— not urgency.
How nice it feels not to reach for my phone. I forget it exists unless I need my calendar or maps or a phone conversation or a quick text check-in with my friends.
Without social media I look up and notice how so many of us are looking down. At our phones. I notice this without judgement, because I understand that pull. That addiction. That instinct to escape. But what we seek to escape is the abyss which provides no relief, further perpetuating the need to escape until our brains are burned out and we wonder why the world is ending, why no one seems to be doing anything about it.
A like, a repost, a reaction. These are not true actions unless we are fully engaged. And it’s impossible to be fully engaged when we are constantly dissociating.
So fucking good, River.
Yes to everything you said here, specially the jealousy bit. I hated myself so much in yesteryears for not being at par with the circle of friends I grew up with. I now know the design of social media was to enable this envy which fuels its growth and the advertisers who promise you that they can sell solutions to all your problems. I am glad that you yet again found your way out of it.
I have discovered that the cure to social media is always deeper and more meaningful connections in the real world because social media lures us in promising those things but hardly delivering.